The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 3, 1918, Page 16

1 ; Use “County Agents” to Down Farmers I 5 i | f i \ness men of Mason City, in Plan of Greater lowa Association to Prostitute Government Experts to Political Purposes in Anti-League War Exposed by Des Moines Minister HAT the Greater Iowa association, maddened by its failure to win farmers and their coin to its drive against the farm- ers’ movement, has laid plans to pros- titute the United States government organization of “county agents” to its purposes, is shown by instances re- counted in a letter just received by the Nonpartisan Leader. If it fails it will be because the “agents” them- selves are too honorable to be used as cat’s paws. This letter is from Rev. E. L. Moore, a minister of Des Moines, Iowa, who is right in the midst of the war now be- ing waged against farmers by the profiteer business interests of Iowa, and his facts and ob- servations are significant. There are 99 counties in Iowa and it is now the boast of the big business interests, who make it their habit to supply farmers with advice and information on farming, that every county has a “county agent.” This is the only state in the United States where this condition exists. That this big force of men, paid for by United States funds and Iowa state taxes, has been mobilized by the landowners and money lenders of Iowa and their al- lies through county political control which they possess to break up the Nonpartisan league, is now fully apparent. Here is what Mr. Moore says in his letter to the Leader: “Not long ago Secretary Faxon of our commercial club gave an address to the busi- which he proposed RELIANCE UPON THE COUNTY AGENTS FOR KEEPING THE FARMERS STRAIGHT, ETC. “I’d like to have you know of a little affair last summer, which is wonderfully illumi- nated by Faxon’s proposal. “I had charge of two churches in farming communities last summer, and I held a big grove meeting in the interests of wholesome country life. I ask- ed two ‘county agents’ nearby to speak at that meeting, giv- ing them choice of topics. I beforehand gave them several folders put out by the ‘de- partment of church and coun- ' try life,” much of which had a squint toward the goals you are seeking through the League. N “The day before the meeting both these agents phoned me that other en- gagements prevented their pres- ence. They were engaged by me \two weeks before the meeting. This means that the Greater Iowa association is going to use the county agents as bunco steer- ers of the farmers.” THIS PROMISE TO BIG BUSINESS SIGNIFICANT Mr.: Moore’s reference to Mason City is doubly significant. This is the heart and nerve center of the cement industry of the United States—the cement trust. Two of the biggest cement plants in the world are located there. - Here is grouped more big it chokes them. enough to administer the medicine. business than anywhere else in Iowa. Nine tile manufacturing plants with their millions of dollars and their po- litical ramifications also center here. It is to these big business minions that Faxon of Des Moines promised the aid of the “county agents” in the attempt to crush the Nonpartisan league. - Other letters from farmers who have awakened to the fight the Greater Iowa association is making against the League are also given here. They are part of the volume of . correspondence that is beginnipg to roll in upon the Leader office. Some have been published. More are waiting. = All are enlightening. They show how the newspapers of Iowa (> W A M bl have been ‘lined up to fight the farmers. Referring to a recent meeting of the Greater Iowa association at Grin- nell, Iowa, and enclosing an Iowa newspaper .attack upon the farmers, Mrs. S. S. Gillespie of Ceolony Bay, Mont., says: “Such infamous, low-down lars afe being left to scourge the country while farmers are patiently and hon- estly trying to do their best for the country. some of us got busy.” Pat O’Connor - of Wibaux, Mont., sent a clipping from the Emmetsburg (Iowa) Democrat reporting a meet- I think it is about time - PAGE -SIXTEEN ing of the Greater Iowa association at which an Iowa insurance man named Moss made a speech against the League. The editor of the paper urged farmers not to join the League. " Commenting on the Greater Iowa as- sociation’s fight, Mr. O’Connor said: TOWNS BEING LINED UP AGAINST FARMERS “This will show you and our read- ers of the Nonpartisan-Leader how . big business is worrying about the poor farmers who are going to get in ‘the game and protect themselves against them.” Mr. O’Connor is a member of the League in Montana. | " GETTING A MOUTHFUL | : = 3 —Drawn expressly for the Leader by J. M. Baer The political highbinders are going to have to swallow a lot of progressive legislation if The western farmer is the man who is big enough, wise enough and strong His first step is to elect his own representatives to state and legirlative offices. For emergency purposes he can use the initiative and referendum. Another Montana farmer, sending clippings from the Adams County Free Press of Iowa says: “I am enclosing some clippings from an Iowa paper. It has been printing some pretty rank statements for the past six or eight months. I formerly resided in Adams county, Iowa, -and know this editor. Would like to see a strong editorial written for his es- pecial benefit.” This Adams County Free Press con- tained clippings from other papers that have been enlisted by the big business corporations of Iowa to fight the League, and contained a bitter de- nunciation of the League in which is made the preposterous statement that League dues are $16 a year (they are _ $8); that every member is liable for all the “debts” of the League (it hasn’t any and no member is liable if it had), and a number of other mis- statements. That the fight is being engineered to line up the business men of the towns is shown by a quotation from the paper: “There has been a number of towns around here that held meetings lately, among them Villisca, Creston, Bed- ford, Shenandoah and Clarinda, at which farmers in the vicinity and pro- fessional and business men met and discussed the Nonpartisan league.” The editor does not state, what is a fact, that the few “farmers” who have met with these busi- ness and professional men are “swivel chair” farmers, or farmers who have large inter- ests outside of what they make by milking their own cows and running their own tractors. BIG FARM PAPER COMES TO FARMERS’ AID Another farmer sent the Leader clippings from the Iowa Homestead of Des Moines, which has of its own account launched a drive against .the Greater Iowa as- sociation, and from -a local paper at . Clarinda, Iowa, in which the local paper lines up with big business against the farmers. The Clarinda paper gives an account of one of the Greater Iowa association meet- ings. They are all being held in churches, wherever churches can be obtained, and women are asked to serve the dinners that are always served. In this way the business men who. are organizing against the farmers have a large, silent audience to listen to their de- nunciation and take into the scores of homes their un- answered attacks upon the League. They have moreover the sort of protection that comes from being associated with the church of the town, which gives to their propa- ganda a respectability that it could never get if held in the commercial club rooms. Among statements from “The Homestead,” which is the oldest farm paper in Iowa and which is friendly to the League are these: “The Greater Iowa associa- tion always has been and al- ways will be hostile to every farmers’ movement in Iowa. It makes no ‘difference what its methods, aims or accom- - plishments, it will be attacked on any grounds that appeal to the leaders of the Greater Towa association as the most effective at the time. “‘Anything to beat the farmers’ . will be the slogan of those who fear the organized farmers of Iowa. “The Iowa Homestead feels it its duty to'warn every reader against al- lowing himself to be ‘worked’ into subscribing $10 for membership in the Greater Iowa association. * * * The word ‘worked’ is used advisedly because there are being held today all over Iowa banquets given by the Greater Iowa association to which farmers are invited with the purpose of flattering them into parting with their money and joining ‘the association.” -